Votes against levy are harmful to the community

My wife and I have lived in the South-Western City School District for nearly eight years. In that time, we never have had school-age children, nor have we drawn a paycheck from the district.

My wife and I have lived in the South-Western City School District for nearly eight years. In that time, we never have had school-age children, nor have we drawn a paycheck from the district.

Yet we nearly always have voted in favor of South-Western levies, and we'll do so again on Issue 47. Why? Some people might say that the only thing we have to gain from school levies is higher property taxes. But we understand that the levy is about us. In fact, it's about every resident of the district.

By my rough math, the 8.3-mill levy that failed in August would have raised my annual real-estate taxes by $400. According to Zillow.com, the value of my house has fallen by $1,000 in the two months since the levy's failure. So what I saved in property taxes has been way more than offset by the decline in my home's value.

Want a secure job close to home? You're also undermining that goal by voting down levies. Businesses today want a good supply of educated, skilled labor. Grove City Mayor Ike Stage already has said that a company that was considering a move to Grove City decided against it after the August levy failed.

There's also hundreds of little ways that a school district helps the local economy. School district employees, who some people around here love to bash, take their paychecks and use that money to buy houses, cars, furniture, appliances, consumer electronics, clothing, groceries, health care and a whole bunch of other goods and services, and they do it locally. Keep voting down levies, and you force the school district to lay them off.

Take thousands of kids who used to have extracurricular activities and now don't, and you're bound to see some of them take their idle time and use it for vandalism and mischief.

The fact is that public schools in Ohio are heavily reliant on local property taxes for financial support. There's nothing unusual about South-Western in that regard. The only thing that is unusual about South-Western is the voters' repeated refusal, over a period of nearly 20 years, to support the schools.

The property-tax rate in South-Western is 14th out of the 16 public school districts in Franklin County. So 13 districts in the county have higher taxes than we do. The same is true about per-pupil spending. Again, the district ranks 14th out of 16 districts. Our spending is $600 per pupil below the state average.

There are people here who want to dig into the details of health-insurance plans, food-catering bills and cell-phone usage. But they're missing the bigger picture: When it comes to spending, South-Western is behind the pack, not leading it. There are other facts that voters here either don't know or don't appreciate. The educational performance of the district is improving. South-Western is rated "continuous improvement"; it used to be on "academic watch."

South-Western employees have made sacrifices. First, 350 of them have sacrificed their jobs since 2006. And all employees unions have agreed to pay freezes. People here still complain that some employees will receive step increases, but the fact is that by giving up a base-pay increase, they are accepting less public money than they otherwise would have.

Some people complain that the Board of Education doesn't listen to the voters. The board has lowered the millage to 7.4 mills, has agreed to a pay-to-play option and just reached an agreement with employees unions to shift some health-insurance costs to employees, saving the district $2.5 million.

I think the board has been incredibly responsive to the community. The truth is that the district is in a state of emergency, and we the voters have the power to fix it. If we don't, we'll all face the consequences.

KEN STAMMEN JR.

Grove City

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